


Christmas Lights and Crystal Roses

by tieria



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Christmas Fluff, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 09:24:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5451650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieria/pseuds/tieria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yuzu has a Christmas Eve date. Things don’t go even remotely the way they were supposed to. In the end, Yuzu thinks, it’s probably a good thing.<br/>Where Yuzu has a date, then loses it, then finds one again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Lights and Crystal Roses

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry I'm so behind on seven lives, finals and work really got the better of me this week. Here's an apology ficlet that I started last may and turned into something a little more winter-y.

Lights adorn the bare branches of the trees that line the Maiami shopping district streets, twinkling in pleasant whites and reds and greens. Couples walk arm in arm down the sidewalk, their chatter pleasant and quiet background noise as Yuzu walks in the opposite direction, a spring in her step. Leftover snow and salt from the morning’s gentle storm crunches satisfyingly under the toes of her boots. She hums an upbeat pop song from some idol group or another as twilight casts the cloud-dappled sky overhead in streaks of orange and gold.

Yuzu smiles, hums the final notes of the song. She can’t hide her excitement, bubbling and fizzing up with every breath she takes- for the first time in her life, Hiiragi Yuzu has a Christmas Eve date.

:::

Masumi didn’t _intend_ to leave her Christmas and New Year’s shopping until Christmas Eve. Really, she hadn’t. Every year she goes to a fancy sushi restaurant with Hokuto and Yaiba and they treat each other to increasingly more extravagant orders until they’re stuffed and broke, and that day had come and gone a week ago. It’s just that Yaiba and Hokuto had to go and surprise her at said dinner with a new deck case for being named the top student out of LDS’ high school first years, and, well… Let it never be said that Masumi doesn’t go to great lengths to find appropriate presents for her friends.

Masumi takes a long breath, adjusting the festive paper bags hanging off her arms, and then continues on her way, heading out of the shopping district and towards home. She turns to take a shortcut through the park, then sees Yuzu, caught in the distant glow of one of the streetlights. Her hair is down, curled slightly where it flows around her shoulders, and she’s wearing a nice coat over her favorite winter dress.

Since their series of meetings in middle school, Masumi had always thought that Yuzu was cute- but like this, dressed up and caught in the soft glow of the Christmas lights overhead, Masumi’s breath is stolen by just how _gorgeous_ Yuzu is.

(And then, as she forces breath back out from her lungs with a puff of white air, her heart cracks and shatters with a quiet ‘ _oh_ ’ at the implications of what she sees.)

:::

Yuzu sits on the side of the fountain, its platforms covered with mounds of white snow, kicking her feet slowly and aimlessly.

Takeshi is nice- he likes animals, especially dogs, and Yuzu knows that he loves his little brother more than anything else in the world. He’s in the choir club with her, which is how this whole ‘asked-out-on-a-Christmas-eve-date’ thing  came about, and he’s helped her out with her English homework more times than Yuzu would like to admit. He’s nice, and caring, and is always there to lend a hand, and-

And he also used to hang around Sawatari when they were in middle school, come to think of it, so Yuzu hangs her head and thinks that she _really_ shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up.

“Hey,” a familiar voice says, its owner settling down next to her, and Yuzu jerks upright.

“Oh, Masumi!” she replies, putting on a smile and trying to summon up that energy that had been so abundant two hours ago. “How are you?”

“I’m fine, but how are you?”

Yuzu keeps smiling- in this situation, it’s all she can do. _“I’m fine,_ ” she starts to say, but she’s cut off by a sudden, violent shiver as the wind picks up, catching the loose snow at their feet and whipping it up into a snowstorm in miniature.

There’s a coat draped around Yuzu’s shoulders in an instant, and Yuzu shakes her head, tries to shove Masumi’s coat back at her. “It’s cold,” she protests, “Come on, I don’t want you getting sick because I’m a little chilly.”

Masumi just fixes her with a stare, the one that tells Yuzu that she knows exactly what Yuzu doesn’t want to tell her, doesn’t really want to believe herself. “Then we’ll trade,” Masumi says, and that, Yuzu thinks, shrugging off her own pink and white jacket to replace with Masumi’s own, a rich, chocolatey brown, is the end of that.

:::

Masumi spends the minute she uses to put on Yuzu’s jacket deciding what she should do with the simple green bag in her possession. She could save it for the Christmas party, like she’d planned, or…

By the time she’s fumbling with the top button, her hands cold even despite her gloves, she’s realized that there really isn’t a choice at all. She rummages through the layers of red and white striped tissue paper, searching for the box hidden at its depths.

With a triumphant smile, she pulls out the box, small and deep navy blue, then presents it to a bewildered Yuzu. “I was going to give it to you later,” Masumi says, aiming for nonchalant and missing the mark by an octave or so, “But since I’m seeing you now, I thought I might as well.”

Yuzu takes it hesitantly, opens the box slowly. She stares at the contents for a long, long moment, and terror hits Masumi with all the force of a car into a brick wall.

“I can’t accept something like this,” Yuzu says, and Masumi mentally slams her head into said brick wall.

_Of course she doesn’t care that much about that damn card, she only has one copy, and she probably never even uses it, what was even the point of getting something like this in the first place-_

“It’s too expensive,” Yuzu adds, and Masumi can suddenly breathe again, a long sigh of relief fogging up the air in front of her.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says with a wave of her hand, “Most of it’s just crystal anyway, it’s not like it was worth _that_ much…”

She stops. That hadn’t come out right, she thinks with dawning horror, and moves to backtrack before she has a handle on what she’s actually going to say. “I mean, not that I wouldn’t spend money on you, I mean, I would buy you one made of real gems if I had the chance, so don’t… Uh…”

Yuzu is giggling behind one gloved hand, the crystal rose replica pin cradled gently in the other. “Thank you, Masumi. I love it.”

As her giggles subside, Yuzu reaches up to pin the crystal rose gently on the collar of Masumi’s jacket- or, more accurately, Yuzu’s jacket, which Masumi just happens to be wearing. “Can I ask you something?” she says, her hands still working with the pin, and their faces are so close that Masumi can do nothing but nod, too scared of breaking the moment to trust herself with words.

“I made reservations for that cute new restaurant in around an hour, but, um… They’re for two, and, well… Want to come with me?” Yuzu finally pulls back from messing with the pin. When she meets Masumi’s eyes, they’re bright and earnest again, sparking with youth and that particular luster that drew Masumi to her in the first place.

Masumi smiles, gathers up her bags and nods. “Yeah, let’s go.”

They head back down the bright streets of the shopping district together, ill-matching coats and all- and, well, if their hands happen to find each other somewhere on the walk, neither of them have any intention of complaining.


End file.
